Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Metaphysics From John Ray to Nima Arkani-Hamed

An Ad Hoc, Capricious Creation

When John Ray refused to conform to the 1662 Act of Uniformity—aimed mainly at the Puritans—and so was forced to leave his position at Cambridge University, he roamed Europe for three years doing what he loved: observing nature. Ray and his companions were in for a surprise: unfathomable diversity. They found thousands of different kinds of insects, animals and plants. Every place had a different flora and fauna, and with different interactions. Life did not seem to follow the kind of compact formulas Isaac Newton was discovering for the new physics. With the overthrow of Aristotelianism, physics was becoming more parsimonious in line with Occam’s Razor. But biology was headed in the opposite direction. Were all these organic life forms and their detailed life histories really necessary? Ralph Cudworth had warned that the immense details of the world, while refuting Descartes’ rejection of final causes, were surely beneath the sovereign Creator’s dignity, and Ray’s three-year tour upped the ante. The Infra Dignitatem argument for a less hands-on creation story was born. There must have been something between the majestic Creator and this ad hoc, capricious, gritty creation. Like the Gnostics, the Aristotle of England, who would also become the father of natural theology, called for a separation between the Creator and the world.

The ancient Greeks described the cosmos as a set of concentric spheres that rotated and rubbed against each other producing harmonious tones. We have always wanted a simple, beautiful world. Certainly that is what God would have wanted too. But nature has not lived up to our expectations.

In fact ever since Newton, physics has been backsliding and becoming increasingly complex. All this was well explained in a Quanta magazine article from last week about leading physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed:

in recent years one question about the universe has come to preoccupy him, along with the field as a whole. Particle physicists seek to know whether the properties of the universe are inevitable, predictable, “natural,” as they say, locking together into a sensible pattern, or whether the universe is extremely unnatural, a peculiar permutation among countless other, more mundane possibilities, observed for no other reason than that its special conditions allow life to arise. A natural universe is, in principle, a knowable one. But if the universe is unnatural and fine-tuned for life, the lucky outcome of a cosmic roulette wheel, then it stands to reason that a vast and diverse “multiverse” of universes must exist beyond our reach — the lifeless products of less serendipitous spins. This multiverse renders our universe impossible to fully understand on its own terms. As things stand, the known elementary particles, codified in a 40-year-old set of equations called the “Standard Model,” lack a sensible pattern and seem astonishingly fine-tuned for life. Arkani-Hamed and other particle physicists, guided by their belief in naturalness, have spent decades devising clever ways to fit the Standard Model into a larger, natural pattern. But time and again, ever-more-powerful particle colliders have failed to turn up proof of their proposals in the form of new particles and phenomena, increasingly pointing toward the bleak and radical prospect that naturalness is dead.

Like Ray’s seventeenth century findings about biology, today’s physicists are finding what seems to be a capricious creation. There is no natural explanation as the world seems to consist of a long list of ad hoc, randomly selected designs. One thing they know for sure: no creator would have done this. It must have arisen by chance.

The Great Pyramid is much bigger than necessary to accomodate it's purpose, to bury a dead Pharaoh. But Khufu made it that big to show how important he was. The Taj Mahal is bigger than necessary to accomodae th body of one dead queen. It was built that big to show love. So too, the Designer made the Universe this big to show how important humasn are. Or maybe, there are forces that are necessary for life to exist that operate at the galactic or cosmic scale only, e.g. dark matter, and dark energy. So the universe needs to be this big.

The universe was made for mankind. That is for a eternal living and breeding mankind. So the universe is for colonization and fun for man. its the original eternity.Anyways.Indeed as then and so now. Creationists are being forced to submitt to evolutionism or be punished as in teaching positions etc.It was the puritan motivation that raised the common intellectual standard of Englishmen. It was this that led to superior accomplishment in science for the Anglo American world and everything else.likewise today putting down and getting in the way of creationist kids or teachers etc leads to a atrophy in accomplishment in our nations.Something to be fixed once again.

"is the universe self created, eternal, imaginary or the result of a purposive cause?"

The last portion of that question cannot be asked, it is absolutely verboten. And that is the reason so much of the scientific community is operating under principles which are in their very nature unscientific. In true scientific investigation no question is forbidden, not even those pertaining to the supernatural.

Evolution is not about science, it is all about philosophy. It always has been and always will be.

"In true scientific investigation no question is forbidden, not even those pertaining to the supernatural."

Nic, I agree. Why do you think modern scientists exclude supernatural causation when it is so obviously the case?From their perspective we come from nothing and go to nothing when life ends, yet they live as if what happens in-between is meaningful.

Nic: "In true scientific investigation no question is forbidden, not even those pertaining to the supernatural."

And they aren't. But, like all science, if you are going to make claims that go against commonly accepted theories, your evidence has to be strong. Continental drift was initially ignored, until the evidence started building up to support it. The same applies to the dinosaur killing asteroid. And numerous other theories.

All you have to do is provide supporting evidence for the supernatural.

"All you have to do is provide supporting evidence for the supernatural."Yeah! Just like evolution has supporting evidence for life coming from nonlife. And evidence for one species changing to another etc etc

If an asteroid/ comet/ meteor killed the dinosaurs we would see fossils of those dinosaurs in and above the impact layer. Yet we don't see that. We see the dinosaur fossils beneath that layer but not in it nor above it.

If an asteroid/ comet/ meteor killed the dinosaurs we would see fossils of those dinosaurs in and above the impact layer

You always say some amazingly stupid things but I couldn't let this one go. If the Chicxulub impact was responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs why in the world would you expect to see dino fossils in the strata above the impact layer, millions of years after the event?

LoL! Why is the strata above that thin iridium layer millions of years older than the iridium layer?

Lord you are a stupid one. The Chicxulub impact occurred almost 66 million years ago. Geologic processes in the rock cycle that deposit sediment didn't magically stop after the impact. There are places in the world that have over 100' of sediment overlying the iridium layer.

Also the impact didn't kill them all instantly. Many would have died slowly, above that thin iridium layer.

Slowly as in a few tens of years or less. That's the blink of an eye in geologic time, well faster that the deposition of new strata above the iridium layer could occur.

The Chicxulub impact occurred almost 66 million years ago. Geologic processes in the rock cycle that deposit sediment didn't magically stop after the impact. There are places in the world that have over 100' of sediment overlying the iridium layer.

That does NOT explain why the layer just above the iridium has to be millions of years old. Obviously you are just an imbecile.

Slowly as in a few tens of years or less. That's the blink of an eye in geologic time, well faster that the deposition of new strata above the iridium layer could occur.

And that means we should see many dinosaur fossils right up the iridium layer, straddling it and right on top of it.Yet we don't see that.

That does NOT explain why the layer just above the iridium has to be millions of years old.

They're dated to millions of years old by well verified radiometric methods. Not that you would understand.

And that means we should see many dinosaur fossils right up the iridium layer, straddling it and right on top of it.Yet we don't see that.

I know for a fact you're too stupid to understand sampling theory so I won't event try to explain it. Fossilization is an extremely rare event compared to the total number of animals that lived. You many only get a few fossils every ten thousand years or hundred thousand years. The closest dino fossil ever found to the iridium layer was approx. 5" below it. That's close enough to suspect it may have been killed by the actual event. No dino fossils have ever been found above it. That's exactly the result you'd expect from a major rapid die-off.

Thank you for providing your usual entertainment with your massive ignorance and stupidity.

A giant impact would throw tons of debris into the atmosphere. That debris would start the layering process for the sediments which means it did not take millions for years to get sediments on top of the iridium layer.

PhillyMike, evolution has absolutely no evidence for life coming from nonlife. Has anyone tried to tell you otherwise?

Nic, science can only deal with what can be observed, either directly or indirectly. Are you suggesting that there is no way to objectively observe (directly or indirectly) the supernatural? If that is the case then why are you talking about science. Personally, I could think of numerous ways to test and observe the supernatural. Maybe we define supernatural differently. I would classify things like telekinesis, distant viewing, faith healing, mind reading and the like as supernatural. I could also devise ways to test each of these.

But if you are defining supernatural as things that can not be observed, or tested, then we are talking about something that can never be examined by science.

PhillyMike, evolution has absolutely no evidence for life coming from nonlife. Has anyone tried to tell you otherwise?"...life almost certainly originated in a series of small steps, each building upon the complexity that evolved previously:" http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/side_0_0/origsoflife_04

People have done experiments on this for years so it would fall into the testable and observable category and, therefore, can be investigated by science.

"How about religious epiphanies?"If I understand what is mean by this it is things like the image of Christ appearing in a potato chip and things like that. As such, they are observable and can be examined scientifically.

"The fact that the entire nation of Israel witnessed and recorded miracles?"

If the miracle in question resulted in a physical artifact, then I guess that it can be examined scientifically. The same with the power of prayer. That would be a very easy one to test, and maybe such a test has been conducted. I would be interested to read about it if it has been done.

The same with the power of prayer. That would be a very easy one to test, and maybe such a test has been conducted. I would be interested to read about it if it has been done.

Indeed it has been. In every single case the "power of prayer" has had zero statistical effect on the outcomes except where it actually showed a detrimental correlation. The most famous of these was the STEP experiment ( "Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer") in 2006 that studies the effect of prayer on the recovery of cardiac surgery patients.

GhostriderSorry but I've seen healings in answer to prayer, complete miracles that the doctors could only describe as 1 in a million. A friend of mine whose hip socket was destroyed by cancer had a new on form just above the original one. The doctors couldn't understand, as that just doesn't happen. Ever. So don't get me started as you have no idea of the power of prayer.

Actually I'm writing down some of the out standing miracles the Lord did for me and my wife over the years in answer to prayer to encourage my grand kids that He never fails no matter the circumstances. I can't give any scientific evidence but I know what I experienced.

And you have even less evidence that prayer did not have an effect on the recovery. Think about it.

LOL! Good old Nic, still completely clueless on the concept of positive evidence.

Science also has no evidence the FSM or the IPU or Zeus or my neighbor's cat or any other oogity-boogity didn't have an effect. But since there is no positive evidence that they did those "causes" aren't considered.

"LOL! Good old Nic, still completely clueless on the concept of positive evidence."

Well, ghostrider, at least you're consistent. Once again you demonstrate your complete lack of understanding of what is being said.

By the way, there is no such thing as positive evidence or negative evidence, there is only evidence. And all evidence is open to interpretation. You really must do some work on your critical analysis skills.

By the way, there is no such thing as positive evidence or negative evidence.

In science there is. Positive evidence is that which directly support your hypothesis to the exclusion of others, like C14 dating and thermoluminescence dating can verify the age of a human neolithic dwelling. Negative evidence is that which directly contradicts or falsifies your hypothesis like radiometric dating falsifies the YEC 6000 year old Earth claim.

I wouldn't expect you to understand how science actually works given your previously demonstrated incompetence in all things scientific.

"In science there is. Positive evidence is that which directly support your hypothesis to the exclusion of others,..."

Good example of how you don't think things through and why your reasoning skills are so poor. If evidence is in support of one hypothesis while at the same time not in support of an alternate hypothesis it is both positive and negative evidence at the same time.

(facepalm) This isn't electric charge you nitwit. The positive for one hypothhesis, negative for another don't cancel each other out. If the language confuses you think of it as confirming evidence for one and refuting evidence for the other.

Positive or or negative is defined with reference to the hypothesis being tested. Of course a piece of evidence can be positive for one hypothesis and negative for another.

When someone says "if the police have positive evidence of one suspect's guilt and negative evidence which exonerates another suspect, the positive and negative cancel out so there is no evidence regarding either suspect" I get they don't have two functioning brain cells to rub together.

"When someone says "if the police have positive evidence of one suspect's guilt and negative evidence which exonerates another suspect, the positive and negative cancel out so there is no evidence regarding either suspect"

There is really no need to continue the demonstration of your total lack of understanding regards my comment, ghostrider. You've done an adequate job already.

Yep. Though evidence can be labeled as positive, it will still in some sense be also negative, with the end result being it is strictly just evidence. And despite your pea brained attempts to demonstrate otherwise my argument does not mean positive and negative cancel each other out resulting in no evidence at all. That, genius, was my point you could never catch on too.

"There goes the stupidity again! Positive and negative evidence cancel out so the evidence can't be used. All of science and the legal profession are wrong, Creationist Nic has spoken!"

There is no other way to put this, but you're as dense as a brick. Correction, denser.

No, positive and negative do not cancel each other out making the evidence unusable. You're lack of reasoning is truly abysmal. All it means is that a piece of evidence which would have a positive effect for the prosecution would have a negative effect for the defence, but it is still the same piece of evidence.

I'm serious, are you even in high school. With reasoning like you're displaying I would really doubt it.

Not even the remotest chance that would work. However, you obviously believe it would, so why don't you tell me why you think it would work. Maybe in the process of doing so you will stumble across the obvious reasons why it would not. If you happen to discover these reasons you will likely also come to the inevitable and logical conclusion such a test is in fact impossible.

"Nic, since you are sure that it wouldn't work, why don't you tell me why not? Could it be because the attempts to use this procedure have not produced the results that you wanted to see?"

First, you made the claim testing prayer would be easy. That means the onus is on you to demonstrate your claim. And yes, I know for a fact your method will not work, not a hope. But cheer up, it's not just you, nobody can subject prayer to scientific investigation. The reasons are woefully obvious if you just think about it for a while.

Second, I have not only seen results from prayer, I've been on the receiving end of them.

So again, William, I ask you to demonstrate exactly how easy it is to test the efficacy of prayer. What would you do?

Nic, you would do it in a similar fashion to drug trials. Select a large number of cancer patients and randomly select them into two groups. Have priests, ministers, rabbis, etc to mention one or more individuals in the group to receive prayers to their congregation to pray for them. The congregation nor the patients would be informed of the study.

If prayer works, then the group prayed for would have a statistically better outcome than the control group.

Yes, it would be complicated by the fact that many of the people in the control group would have loved ones praying for them. But if the group is large enough, you should still see a statistical difference.

"Nic, you would do it in a similar fashion to drug trials. Select a large number of cancer patients and randomly select them into two groups. Have priests, ministers, rabbis, etc to mention one or more individuals in the group to receive prayers to their congregation to pray for them. The congregation nor the patients would be informed of the study."

And you really cannot see any reasons why this would not in any way work? You seem like a nice guy so I will give you a little while longer to ponder this scenario before I burst your bubble with some cold facts as to why this is palpable nonsense and will never give any kind of scientific results.

"other factors would have to be controlled for, but think it is manageable."

First, you must realize prayer is not a drug and as such cannot be put to the test in the same way that drugs can.

Henry is 60 yrs old and is suffering from terminal cancer. He has spent his whole life serving people, at home and for 35 yrs overseas as a Christian missionary. He has friends and relatives all over the world who love him dearly and are earnestly praying to God to help Henry. Three months later Henry dies. Were the prayers of these many individuals answered?

Agreed, but it is well known that the placebo effect is real and measurable. It is also known that a person's attitude (state of mind and well being) can have positive and negative impacts to health. And I think I remember reading somewhere that regular church goers tend to live longer than non-church goers. Which doesn't really surprise me. In addition to providing spiritual comfort, church can be a remarkable social bonding mechanism.

"...and as such cannot be put to the test in the same way that drugs can."

In this we would disagree. The hardest part would be to control for the other factors (e.g., number of family and close friends (because even in the control group, close friends and family would presumably be praying for you). But I don't see any insurmountable barriers to conducting an appropriate experiment.

A statistically significant difference in outcome, repeated in more than one trial. The same as for drugs. I would probably still have doubts, in the same way I do for drug trials. But the more significant the difference, the more compelling it would be.

No, we have agreed that prayer isn't a drug. Not that they can't be tested using the same process.

If you are saying that statistics won't work because prayer acts on an individual, so does a drug. In drug trials, there are always people in the control group who have a better than average outcome, and people in the group receiving the drug who have a poorer than average outcome. If prayer is effective, why wouldn't we expect to see the same? Would not some people who have had nobody pray for them, and not prayed for themselves, have a better outcome than the average? And would there not be some who were prayed for who would have a worse outcome? That is why we use blind, controlled drug trials, and statistics to identify if any observed difference is significantly above what we would expect to happen by chance.

What surprises me is that a person who believes in the efficacy of prayer would be so adamant that it cannot be tested. My informed "belief" is that humans share a common ancestor with all other life on the planet. I welcome all avenues that can be used to test this. Even those proposed by ID proponents.

If you want to ascribe the anomalous data that is found in almost every drug trial to the effects of prayer, that would be an interestimg proposition, and one that we should be able to design a test to examine. A simple start, although by no means without its weaknesses, would be to survey participants in clinical trials on the religious strengths of themselves and their family. We could then examine the study data from that perspective.

"If you are saying that statistics won't work because prayer acts on an individual, so does a drug."

No, that is not what I'm saying. I'm saying prayer cannot be subjected to controlled scientific investigation the way drugs can. Quite different.

"If prayer is effective, why wouldn't we expect to see the same?"

It is, and we do. However, you're not seeing the variables involved which affect the outcome and place it outside the realm of basic scientific investigation. That is what I am trying to get you to recognize.

You still have not answered my question regards Henry. Were the prayers for him answered?

Nic: "You still have not answered my question regards Henry. Were the prayers for him answered?"

Who knows? Dying certainly ends his suffering, so in that way he was helped. If he went to heaven, then I presume that he was helped. If his pain was relieved, then he was helped. Or the prayers did nothing and his cancer just ran its course.

But the one thing that is for certain is that if prayer was effective, the outcome would be different (even if it means dying sooner) than if the person was not the focus of prayer. And if there is a difference, it can be measured, even if it was just the easing of the pain.

Nic: "You still have not answered my question regards Henry. Were the prayers for him answered?"

William: "Who knows? Dying certainly ends his suffering, so in that way he was helped. If he went to heaven, then I presume that he was helped. If his pain was relieved, then he was helped. Or the prayers did nothing and his cancer just ran its course."

Good grief, William, that's my point, you can't know. You just affirmed my argument, so why are you continuing to argue you CAN know?

"But the one thing that is for certain is that if prayer was effective, the outcome would be different (even if it means dying sooner) than if the person was not the focus of prayer."

What if the people were praying for Henry to die so as to end his suffering, would the prayers then have been effective? If Henry's death is what they were praying for and God granted their prayers, in what way must the outcome be different?

"And if there is a difference, it can be measured,..."

But that is exactly what you still have to demonstrate. You admit you can't know if Henry was helped or not and that is because you have no way of controlling how and what people pray for.

When your drug varies in chemical composition your test of its effectiveness is impossible. Prayer is exactly that in nature, you do not know and cannot control what people are praying for and why.

There are a couple of other factors you are failing to recognize. First, when people pray it is with the assumption that God does exist and he is able to answer prayer. William, no is an answer. All earnest and sincere prayers are answered by God, but they are not all always answered in the way those praying would like them to be answered.

Second, God is THE major factor in the outcome of prayer, do you really believe the omnipotent, omniscient creator of the universe cares about your little experiment to test whether or not you believe he answers prayer? Do you really think he is going to jump through your hoops and follow your rules?

That is why any test for the effectiveness of prayer is utter nonsense. Do I believe I've changed your mind? No, I don't, because like your comment to me earlier, I don't think you like the consequences of the facts.

Nic: "Second, God is THE major factor in the outcome of prayer, do you really believe the omnipotent, omniscient creator of the universe cares about your little experiment to test whether or not you believe he answers prayer? Do you really think he is going to jump through your hoops and follow your rules?"

No, of course he wouldn't care about my silly little test. But presumably he wouldn't refuse to respond to honestly given prayers to help truly suffering people just to teach me a lesson. That would seem rather childish and capricious.

But to play the devil's advocate (pun intended, but I couldn't resist), is it not possible that God would welcome such a test to provide evidence to people of the power of prayer?

And keep in mind, that a drug trial type test could never prove that prayers don't work, only provide evidence that they do.